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Should you get an MMR booster with the current measles outbreak? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-28
Yesterday I got a lot of questions in real time from patients about whether they should get an MMR booster to shore up their defenses against measles. I sent a quick boost answer based entirely on CDC guidance, and hopefully this was helpful. But I want to dig deeper. So after seeing patients and getting home, I crunched through some stuff until 2 AM, and then cleaned it up this morning. I hope you also find this helpful. It is sourced from over 100 citations and I had to leverage Perplexity to help me synthesize it.
Please consider this as educational information, and then make your own decision in consultation with your doctor if needed. Me? What am I doing right now as a healthcare provider in a measles outbreak that has reached my backyard in Jersey? I checked my dusty vaccine records. Looks like I got 2 MMR shots as a little kid. I then had a 3rd shot in 1991 which I don’t remember. Turns out there was a measles outbreak in Philly that year. Over 1,400 people (mostly children) became sick with measles, and nine children died. The epicenters were unvaccinated children in fundamentalist churches that relied on faith healing. Crazy I don’t remember this, though I do remember Operation Desert Storm that expelled Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that year. My astute family doctor must have given me that third shot. I’ve had MMR blood titers checked during med school, and then again when starting my practice as an attending. I had protective antibodies. That was 20 years ago, so I’m tempted to check them again… but guidelines might suggest this is excessive.
If I’m told by public health leaders or other trusted sources to roll my sleeve up for another shot now, I absolutely will. And if we start hearing about mumps I will get another MMR, too.
So what about you? What does the CDC consider adequate protection in general, and during times of measles outbreaks? As long as you have presumptive evidence of immunity they state you are ok right now.
Acceptable presumptive evidence of immunity to measles includes:
• Written documentation of adequate vaccination
• Laboratory evidence of immunity
• Birth before 1957
• Laboratory confirmation of disease
What is adequate vaccination? Why is this so confusing?
Hopefully the table at the top of this post will help. I made it from CDC guidance. The columns include standard and measles outbreak recommendations:
Additional notes:
* During an outbreak, public health authorities may recommend additional doses or accelerated vaccination schedules for certain groups at increased risk. I’ll be watching for this.
* For adults born before 1957, while they are generally considered immune, during outbreaks or in healthcare settings, vaccination may still be recommended as an extra precaution.
* If you were vaccinated between 1968 and 1989, you likely received just one dose of the measles vaccine, instead of the two doses that are standard today.
* Those who only received the killed measles vaccine (1963-1967) should be revaccinated with the current live vaccine.
You can follow the measles outbreak numbers in the US via this CDC resource. Hopefully it will not be censored and manipulated.
We are not looking good as a country right now in so many ways. Science tells us that at least a 95% measles vaccination rate is needed to keep outbreaks from spreading. How are we doing on that?
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